The Shock of the Mundane: Or, How the Mundane Ate My Homework
Podcast:
In this podcast, I examine Edgerton's analysis of maintenance, which gestures towards a counter history to the innovation-centric perspective. Meditating on the results of my experiment with "things," I conclude that the relationship between humans and artifice predicates on maintenance of the mundane.
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Comments
Coffee and other common dangers
Nice podcast. I appreciated your conversational tone and the narrative you created. I am impressed that you would tackle such an undertaking as logging all the technological 'things' you use in a day. The fact that you even noted doors and such expands the definition so far that honestly it hurts my mind to think about it. So here's to you and your bravery.
One thing that particulary struck me was that essentially you put Edgerton's notion of a history of technology in use into action. Namely, the tech things we use everyday without awareness of their significance, much less their origins. I also like the attention you focused onto the idea that things belong to people but technology does not. Even virtual spaces as customizable as Facebook can only be experienced via a technological thing such as a computer or smart phone. As you demonstrated the hard way by spilling coffee onto your laptop, not having access to VR essentially makes it useless or even non-existent.
Speaking of the errant elbow and coffee sabotage, it made me giggle (sorry) when the thing standing between you and time/computer saving paper towels was a machine with a motion sensor. This dispenser, as you note, is designed to be enviornmentally friendly by cutting down on wasted towels. Yet in a case such as yours where large quantity at top speed is needed, this machine proves to be a thorn in one's side (or laptop). Yet, despite the malice you may have felt for the machine at the time, it is an innovation intended to serve the greater good of all. So is the sacrifice of going green worth the three day delay in computer use? Probably, but a better question might be how to build a dispenser that can both ration wasteful users but still provide a larger quantity in emergency situations...there's money to be made here.
At any rate I found your experience to be facinating and am a bit disappointed that I'll never see the final list of your daily-used technological things. But alas, just as sacrifices must be made to preserve the planet, so must they be made to enjoy the soul-deep pleasure of our precious coffee--friend to graduate students everywhere.
Cheers,
Nate